Survival
by annoying-antisocial
Summary: No psychological training tells you how to fix yourself. ((Sweets centered. Not timeline compliant. BxB, Hodgila, Sweets and Vincent friendship. TW: Anorexia, insomnia, past suicidal tendencies, abuse, canon violence.))


_**Authors note:** SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETS. You know what I mean if you've caught up, but if you haven't I refuse to spoil things. This is only compliant with...like up to season "wherever Vincent dies" because I don't want him dead so he's not._

_This is referencing back in the beginning when baby ducky looked lost in his suits, very skinny was he._

_I knoooooow what all of you (if there are any) Bones readers who've read my past stuff are thinking:Where the actual frickle ya been, kid? WELL I joined a bunch of fandoms and have been hopping around._

_Here I am with this mega depressing-but will end in fluff-story about my first (and forever baby) I refuse season 10, I don't fucking comply. So here have my feels all wrapped up in a sad-but will be happy-fic._

_**Ships:** BxB, Hodgila, and Sweets/more-than-one-OFC in a one night stand type thing_

_**Warnings:** Anorexia, insomnia, past abuse, canon-typical violence, past self-harm, one night stands (inability to commit to one person), suicide references/thoughts, general depression because that's how I treat Sweets._

_I'm so fucking with the timeline cause BxB is together and Vincent isn't dead, but then again Sweets is severely mentally unstable so this is an "Alternate Universe-Canon Divergence" so if you don't like my fuck the world here, go fix season 10._

_Review my chéris!_

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><p><em><strong>Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness. They may not wear it on their sleeves, but it's there if you look deep.<strong>_

_**-Taraji P. Henson**_

Doctor Lance Sweets was a lucky man, and he knew it. He had a good job, he wasn't terribly unattractive, he was brilliant, and he might even have a few friends. He should be happy, should mean every smile and laugh, should look in the mirror and not feel sick at what he sees.

But people hardly ever did what they should.

The routine was simple, he'd worked it out to a hair's breadth from perfection since his parents passed. Wake up at five, convince himself to get up by 5:30, shower and make coffee. Leave by six, hide in his office until he remembers how to pretend to breathe with ease. Meet Booth, work, more coffee, more work. Go home around eight, more coffee and a little water, books and cases, tv, get in bed and sit there until the next morning.

That was life, and it was easy, it was how he ran. Robotic, in control, and when anyone asked, completely fine.

No one on the team ever really noticed, occasionally someone would offhandedly comment how he "looked over worked" and "Sweets, do you know what food is?". He'd laugh, than they would and all that almost-worry would melt away, along with his only chance to get better. He wasn't stupid after all, and he'd studied all this. All the things he was doing now, he learned about all of them. How to detect them(he's known after the third day without eating, and the fourth sleepless night), how to help someone confront them (He had looked in the mirror, seen his own rib cage protruding from under thin pale skin and his eyes sunken into his head. He then turned away and ignored it.), and he knew how to get them help (but not himself, they never taught you that.)

So he knew everytime he blew their concerns off, made them forget another chance at his survival bled away. Don't get the man wrong, he wanted to live. He wanted a wife, a baby, a family and happiness, but the problem with depression was that he just didn't care enough to stop himself. The future didn't matter to him, because he never saw anything but this endless oblivion of _something _that felt like **nothing**.

A little voice-which was soft with the strangest southern lilt, like Arizona wind in his ears-kept telling him to tell someone, ask someone, show them what was left of his little heart. Than a bigger, booming voice would cackle in his ears-this one like New York traffic, hollering and rattling his teeth as it suffocated him-and it would tell him no one cared.

Not then, not now, no one would ever give a damn about pathetic little Lancey.

So he kept it all in, and he didn't eat or sleep or feel anything anymore. The pain normal within him, so overpowering all other emotions were squashed before they grew. So familiar it didn't even feel like emotion anymore, more like walking or talking. It's what he did, who he was. Sweets had no idea what he was without the dead weight in the pit off his stomach.

It didn't matter, no one really noticed. Except the occasional girl, the pretty ones with long hair and big eyes. Staring at him with wonder and innocence and drunken admiration, tracing scares with elegant fingers, whispering "you're so brave" into his skin. They would gently stroke a few obvious bones, ask him if he ate, he'd smile and kiss her into senselessness until they were tangled together and she forgot.

It was a lonely way to live, but it's what he'd been doing for almost a year. It was habit, tradition, comfortable. Sweets didn't mind anymore, didn't mind the ache of hunger or the ring of voices trailing behind him. The lonely, cold open arms of his apartment every night. The way he sat alone most of the time, not because he lacked things to do, more lacked the energy or care to do them.

The team didn't notice, the girls he never saw again, and the only two people who could help him now were long gone. Lance Sweets was a lost cause in a lost world. Being the very thing he tried to fix, knowing how but never acting, the true definition of a hypocrite. He could wander around, unseeing eyes staring, still heart pounding, petrified lungs breathing, and useless brain giving other advice. Mouth moving, words spilling, but he rarely paid attention to what was said. Later, he usually found out he helped and he'd nod and smile and say he was happy to.

But how could you be happy when you couldn't remember what it felt like? When Lance thought of himself, he thought: Dead, gone, empty, carcass, deserted. That's what he was, afterall. Without feelings, how much of a person could you be? Like a dry ocean, or a hollowed out tree, he didn't count. He wasn't Lance Sweets, just the ghost of a man going through the motions of a life without living one.

So Sweets continued dancing the dance everyone wanted, trapped in the darkened forest of his mind while his body went about making a life. He watched, through the trees and fog and darkness. Listened past the howls of agony and screams of fear. Felt the world around him, ignoring the nicking of invisible blades on his soul.

Blackened mind trapping him, he rarely escaped. Only truly feeling the world-smelling coffee and stale donuts, antiseptic and science, blood and decomposition. Tasting tang and sweet of food, the warmth of a woman he won't remember, oxygen that felt precious in his lungs- on a rare and blessed occasion.

Lance knew this would be his life until he died, and found himself hoping it was soon. He hated the dark, despised living in it. He just wanted to move on, but knew he was beyond help for himself. Someone would have to save him, but he never truly believed that would happen.

Not until, one day he was looking upon a skeleton with torn clothes and grinning teeth. Empty eyes looking at him with accusation, and he was defenseless and alone with the dead remains of a human. He stared right back at those eyes, giving the empty blackness his own complaints and accusations. Blame and hatred like fire in his soul, burning on top of the pain for a moment of true living. He had them occasionally, and they were a rush he always looked forward too.

Sweets stared down at this grinning face, blood still dried on the gray bones, and waited. He didn't know what for, this dead woman couldn't help him. She was beyond his help, and he hers. So he didn't know what he was waiting for until a sharp clearing of someones throat brought his eyes to a familiar face.

Pale skin and bright blue eyes struck him out of his hypnosis, and he blinked a few times at the intern who was simply blinking back. The psychologist opened his mouth to reply, but fell short of words. Vincent didn't.

"Uhm, forgive me but uh… "The young man shifted restlessly, playing with the latex gloves on his fingers. "Why do you always look so sad, doctor?"

**Alright, so this is just like a "So, what do you think?" Chapter, so...REVIEW AND THE UPDATES WILL COME FASTER. That's my bargain, hopefully it works. **


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